Lirae protested at first. She really did not want to leave Damon’s side. She wanted to stay back and fight alongside him but Damon swiftly shut it down.
"Your skills and abilities are new. You still need to fully grasp what you gained from the legacy so do not argue with . After you familiarize yourself with your new class and skills, I won’t hold you back. You can pick a fight with anyone you want."
Lirae did not argue after that, especially after seeing the serious expression on Damon’s face. She along with Kaelthorn and green eyes, silently appeared near the Blood Gate portal one after the other.
This ti Damon secured the portal with several blood barriers and no last minute attack was able to destabilize the whole thing. From the beginning to end he made sure to use a lot of distractions and engage with the maniac and the plan went by swimmingly.
As soon as the portal appeared, the three quickly disappeared in the chaos.
Before the guy could realize they were already gone and now safe and secure in the Blood Hall. The ’Third’ really only ended up talking and popping in and out here and there like a mole in a whack-a-mole ga.
When he finally realized what had happened right under his nose, his expression darkened. "You really should not have done that. You took advantage of !"
The assassin stared at the empty air where the portal had vanished, eyes wide with the exact expression of soone discovering that the punchline of a joke was him.
The battlefield beca quiet around him, quiet except for the corpses of his own n dissolving into sand and blood. His lips twitched once. Twice. A vein pulsed at his temple.
Then, he laughed. A low, incredulous, disbelieving laugh that built and built until it echoed across the dunes like the cackle of a mad god.
"Do you know how long it has been since soone tricked ?" he asked no one, pacing in a small tight circle. "Do you know how long it has been since anyone had the ball, the balls, to use as a shield while escaping?"
He stopped dead. Then threw his head back. And scread. "You just punked ! Alright, I guess this ends our fun together. Those bastards are going to make work extra ti for the small bluff you just pulled off. So you only have yourself to bla for whatever happens to you next."
Damon lifted his brow. He prepared himself. He was fully aware that his actions would trigger sothing but he did not care. He would rather get things done one way or the other than waste his ti with this maniac.
And if this maniac was finally going to unleash so sort of ultimate move, he was not an idiot to stand around and beg for it with his palms outstretched.
Damon already started moving. Or rather his shadow clone was already far ahead of the ga. There was no reason to risk fighting with soone whose skills and powers he was not familiar with so without any hesitation, he switched places with his shadow clone.
In the span of a breath, Damon was a kiloter away. In the span of two breaths, he was ten. The desert blurred past him as he chained Blink, Shadow Step, Blink, Shadowstep until even the dunes couldn’t rember he had been there.
But even as he reached what should have been a safe distance, the sa voice cackled. "A runner! A runner! The punk vampire almost pulled another one on ! You little piece of shit!"
Damon’s face changed. Before he could do anything else, the world around him suddenly changed. The dunes vanished. The sky vanished. The desert wind vanished. He didn’t teleport. He didn’t move.
But he was sowhere else. In so sort of weird dystopic place. A place that had mirrors everywhere!
Ceiling, floor, walls, pillars, distant arches, every surface was made of tarnished, cracked mirror-glass reflecting endless distorted versions of him. So were taller, so hunched, so skeletal, so monstrous. So reflected his eyes wrong, showing them hollow, or glowing, or stained black with a madness that wasn’t his.
His own reflection... didn’t move with him. He turned his head left. The reflection stared straight ahead. He lifted a hand. The mirror-hand twitched delayed, as if waking from a nightmare.
"...illusion?" Damon muttered coldly.
"Nope!" The voice bounced around the mirror world like a child delighted by the echo of his own shrieks.
Damon instantly threw blood lances in every direction, dozens, hundreds, filling the mirrored maze with blood and poison everywhere.
The lances skewered reflections, pillars, walls. Glass shattered everywhere, cracked, and spiderwebbed. However, the next instant they reford just as fast.
"Sorry, sorry! You can try and try but there is no escape, my friend." the Third’s voice chid, dripping joy. "I must also warn you. This is no illusion. This place is real and your death here will also be very real. Welco to my little playground. My pocket realm. My Mirror World."
Damon’s face hardened. If what the maniac was spouting was correct, then he was indeed in a bad situation. He was in so sort of dinsional trap with his connection to space severed. Blood gathered around his hands, building into a seething storm of lances that could tear apart fortresses.
"Ohhh, look at that expression," the Third crooned. "That’s the look. The ’shit, I might die here’ look. Very flattering. Very honest." His voice swirled through the reflections, impossible to pinpoint. "Go on. Show more."
Damon didn’t answer. He steadied his breathing and released the poison domain fully, every inch of the mirror world turned into a deadly haze. Toxins ate through glass, ate through mana, ate through everything but nothing changed.
The poison was simply... swallowed. Absorbed into the mirrors like the realm was drinking it.
"Yeaaah," the Third sang. "That won’t work. This place doesn’t really obey natural properties. Poisons, fire, gravity... you know, ’real’ things? They have no aning here. This is my little world and you are now playing by my little rules!"
***
Chapter 10 Mass Release sponsored by Teoswig
Another shoutout for Teoswig for supporting through pat_reon!
Pat_reon link: patr_ eon/ Duskblade
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